The present invention relates generally to a reverse opening vehicle door and more particularly to a reverse opening vehicle door with improved appearance and independent function characteristics. The design and manufacture of automobile vehicles requires a variety of considerations. These considerations, including utility customers, customer convenience, and safety influence an ever growing portion of vehicle design. One such area of vehicle design subjected to such considerations involves the ingress and egress of the vehicle. Where once vehicle door assemblies primarily only varied in number, a growing number of vehicle doors with novel utility or operation have been developed.
One such non-standard door design involves the use of a reverse opening vehicle door. Reverse opening vehicle doors hold a long history in vehicle design. Early models were often simply mirrors of standard door designs and thereby required a pillar to be positioned between the front and rear doors. Although these designs could be noted for their simplicity, the existence of a pillar between the front and rear doors often hampered ingress and egress in the vehicle. Although they provided beneficial simplicity of use, the requirement of a pillar, and its corresponding inconvenience, can make this design unsuitable in many modern applications.
The interfering pillar was removed in some reverse opening vehicle door embodiments through the use of an overlapping front door. Designs with a front door that overlapped the leading edge of the reverse opening rear door provided benefits to the vehicle appearance by allowing for improved fit and finish. These appearance benefits, however, came at a cost. The overlapping front door commonly prevented the reverse opening rear door from operating independently. In these designs, the front door typically had to be opened before the reverse opening rear door could be utilized. This was inconvenient for a variety of reasons. Adults positioned within the rear of the vehicle could not open the reverse opening rear door and exit the vehicle without someone first opening the front door. In addition, entry and storage in the rear of the vehicle was awkward without independent functioning of the rear door.
One approach to providing independent function reverse opening vehicle door has been for the use of sliding vehicle doors. These doors allow for the improved appearance of overlapping front doors while providing independent function characteristics. Despite the benefits associated with sliding doors, they commonly carry with them a variety of detriments. Often tracks that control the movement of the sliding door, usurp valuable space within the vehicle. In addition, in some embodiments, both the tracks and pivots of the sliding door may be exposed and thereby create aesthetic disadvantages and consumer dissatisfaction. Finally, the design of sliding doors often does not allow them to provide unencumbered access to the vehicles. Often, these doors remain partially covering the vehicle opening and thereby hamper ingress and egress of the vehicle.
It would, therefore, be highly desirable to have a reverse opening vehicle door that did not require an interfering pillar, that retained the appearance benefits of an overlapping front edge, that provided independent function characteristics, and that operated without the detriments associated with sliding door models.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a reverse opening vehicle door without the necessity of a pillar, that allows for front door overlap, that has independent function characteristics, and that does not necessitate complex tracking guides.
In accordance with the object of the present invention, a reverse opening vehicle door is provided. The reverse opening vehicle door includes a door body having a fore portion and an aft portion. The reverse opening vehicle door further includes a catch mechanism positioned on the fore portion of the door body and a hinge mechanism positioned on the aft portion of the door body. The catch mechanism and the hinge mechanism permit the door body to move between at least three positions. These positions include a closed position where the fore portion is in a fore closed position, and the aft portion is in an aft closed position. The three positions further include an intermediate position where the aft portion is in an aft intermediate position and the fore portion is in a fore intermediate position. The aft intermediate position is located outboard and rearward of the aft closed position, and the fore intermediate position is located rearward of the fore closed position. The at least three positions further includes an open position where the fore portion is rotated rearward about the aft intermediate position.
Other objects and features of the present invention will become apparent when viewed in light of the detailed description of the preferred embodiment when taken in conjunction with the attached drawings and appended claims.